Event: Frome Agricultural and Cheese Show 2012

Last weekend the Global Miller visited the Frome Agricultural and Cheese Show in Somerset, UK.  Dating back to 1861, the event gives farmers the chance to show off their animals and produce after the summer harvest.  Traditionally, Frome schoolchildren were given the day off school to attend the show in the town centre.  Its growing popularity means that today the Cheese Show is held on a Saturday on land a few miles from Frome.

As the names suggests, there is always an abundance of cheese, with plenty of samples to taste.  We dipped into the cheese marquee to check out a cheese platter worth a whopping £2,000 (with gold flakes and white truffles among the ingredients, the hefty price tag is no surprise).

There was plenty of  time to sip locally produced cider, pet pygmy goats, admire fancy poultry and gawp at giant vegetables.

But of course the highlight for us was the Fodder and Grain tent.  Despite the dreadful weather the UK has experienced this summer, there was a good selection of entries across a variety of categories.  We got chatting to a grain aficionado who told us that at one point the UK had enough grain stockpiled to last three years.  Today the country has enough for 12 weeks.  But that's nothing compared the end of World War II when the country had just supplies for just 12 days.

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